


danse avec moi

by space_dev



Category: Be More Chill - Iconis/Tracz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Titanic, Alternate Universe - Zombies, British!Jeremy, French!Michael, M/M, RMS Titanic, fastburn, this is really crappy y'all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-16
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-03 03:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16318223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_dev/pseuds/space_dev
Summary: Dance with me. Please, Jeremy," Michael pleaded.The RMS Titanic, a zombie apocalypse, a legend.





	danse avec moi

The Titanic was the nicest ship Jeremy had ever been on.

Being a third-class passenger, you'd expect it to be grimy, gross, with crowded bunk beds and crying babies, but no, not here. Instead, there were narrow but pleasant one-person bunks, four in a room, with drawers built in underneath for clothes. The single toilet had cloths you could hold up around you, and there was always fresh water. It was nice. Not what Jeremy had been expecting.

He came from a poor family in Bristol. His da had died of a long illness when he was nine, and his mum followed when he was eleven. From there on out, he'd had to support himself on the streets, mud larking for a few shillings each day and stealing what food he couldn't buy.

Until he'd met Christine, a wealthy woman who ran a theatre downtown. She'd told him that he would be a wonderful actor, and paid him in food and lodgings for appearing in several plays. And, as much as he hated to admit it, he was a good actor.

And after awhile, she began to pay him with money too, and she was the one who saw the advertisement for passage on the R.M.S. Titanic, a chance for him to reunite with his aunt, uncle, and cousins who'd gone to New York on a rotten steamer ten years before his birth, and she gave him a couple extra pounds that he didn't have to pay for the journey, and sent letters to prestigious actor friends she knew in New York to help him get started.

And so, after one final Shakespeare production (A Midsummer Night's Dream,) she made him promise to write and then waved him off at the train station, and then he was off. The train ride to Southampton had been uneventful, and he'd stayed in a cheap hotel that one of Christine's friends ran. And now, he was on the Titanic, the greatest ship ever built, for a fast and comfortable journey to New York City, to America, to opportunity as an actor.

He'd unpacked his trunk, a brown leather number on loan from Christine, and began to get acquainted with his roommates as they arrived.

The first one was James Smith, a middle-aged man coming to join his daughter, her husband, and newborn son in Boston, then Marcus Keller, a sixteen-year-old boy trying to reunite with his mum. The fourth bunk remained unoccupied, but Jeremy was convinced it'd fill up after the stops in France and Ireland.

After making acquaintance with James and Marcus, he walked out to the promenade to watch the ship depart, and was joined by a number of other third-class passengers. When the New York nearly crashed into the ship, Jeremy heard a woman with a thick Southerner accent mutter, "What'd you expect from a ship called the New York?" As most of the third-class passengers were British or Scottish, this got a laugh from nearly everybody.

The next few days were perfect. The dining saloon was nice and the food was excellent, and the friendly atmosphere of the third-class area was quite nice. It reminded him of home, before his da got sick.

The fourth bunk filled up in France with a dark-skinned boy in red, and he introduced himself as Michael Mell. His accent was thick but his English was excellent. And... he was extremely nice, too. Fetched Marcus some ice when he bung his head on James' bunk. Talked about books with him for three hours. Helped James with a map of Boston. And so many more. He was clever, kind, extroverted, and handsome. And apparently, Michael thought the same of him.

One night, while Marcus was out on the promenade and James was at the dining saloon, they'd shared a desperate set of kisses. It was powerful, rough, and beautiful, and they repeated this near every night. Each night was better than the last, and since Michael was going to New York and planning to stay there as well, they agreed that they'd try and find housing together. Everything was perfect.

That is, until _they_ came.

It was a normal evening, and he and Michael were dining in the saloon. As were many other third-class passengers, some of them looking quite green. Which was normal. Most people dismissed them as seasick.

That is, until the green-faced and rotting woman once known as Olivia O'Brien bit Candace Bisset's left arm and chaos broke out.

Zombies, people said, were attacking the third-class passengers. Where they came from? Nobody knew. And what they wanted? Nobody knew.

Jeremy and Michael, along with Marcus and a French girl, just fourteen years of age, named Ines Doubois found themselves inside a fort of overturned saloon tables, along with about twenty other people, including seven babies.

Word of mouth went quicker than any newfangled telegraph or telephone, and through a series of food missions to the kitchen, Michael brought back news that the zombies had spread upwards, almost obliterating the second class and now infecting the first class. Nobody was safe.

Especially when news arrived that the zombies had eaten a large hole out of the side of the ship.

Lifeboats were being dispatched on the Boat Deck, people said, and there was no longer a barrier barring them from getting up there. So, they strapped babies to the chests any of woman who could carry one and covered them in enough cloth to deflect a bite, but not too much as to suffocate them, every inch of skin anyone had was covered as best they could, and several people took up steak knives to protect the others. And so, all the women and children were sent up the Grand Staircase and into lifeboats.

But when the men arrived...

"I'm sorry, women and children only," a sailor said, blocking them from going any further.

"Why not us?" Marcus asked.

"Women and children only," he insisted.

So what could they do?

Jeremy, himself, pulled Michael aside in a closet. "Michael. What do we do?"

Michael shook his head. "There's nothing we can do. There must not be enough lifeboats. We can't do anything but go down with the zombies."

"But then... what about Christine? My family in New York? Your mothers? We've come so far, only now to be drowned?"

Michael cupped Jeremy's cheek in his left hand. His hand was cool on Jeremy's cheek, sweaty from nervousness and humidity. "We'll die together, _mon amour._ "

"Teach me some French while we're still here," Jeremy said suddenly. "Please,

Michael looked off guard for a moment, but nodded quickly. "Mon amour. Mon is my, amour is love."

"How do you say hello, love?"

" _Bonjour, amour_."

"Till death do we part."

" _Jusqu'à la mort nous séparons_."

"I'll miss you."

" _Nous serons toujours ensemble._ "

"That didn't sound right."

" _Cela n'a pas semblé juste._ "

"Michael."

He smiled sadly. I said, 'we'll always be together."

"What about I love you?"

" _Je t'aime_."

There was a loud cracking sound, and the single lightbulb above them started to flicker. And the screams began.

Michael pulled Jeremy out of the closet, up the grand staircase again, and up to the boat deck. There, the band played a song sounding quite like the Songe d'Automne.

" _Danse avec moi_. Dance with me. Please, Jeremy," Michael pleaded, taking up Jeremy's other hand in his.

And so they danced. They danced, crying together softly, until the front end broke off and they were plunged inro the water together, but still, they held on to the other until the very end.

It is said that Jeremy succumbed to the cold and water first, and Michael followed just a couple minutes later. Two women and one man, plus one child in Lifeboat 12 reported seeing two young men, obviously dead, still clinging to each other. Another woman, in Lifeboat 3, reported seeing a man who matched the description of Jeremy, calm and collected as he drowned, holding the hand of another young man, fighting the water for a moment before calming and dying as calm as Jeremy.

But all eyewitnesses agree, they clung to each other in some form or another, even in death.


End file.
